Contents of this issue:

DIVIDED OPINION ON SERVICE TAX

LANSING, Mich. - A public education advocacy group
said Monday that Michigan should begin taxing consumer services at 5.5 percent,
while reducing the existing sales tax from 6 to 5.5 percent, as a way to
generate $550 million for schools in 2011, according to The Associated Press.

However, in a separate report in the Grand Haven
Tribune, a cosmetologist warned that her industry already is seeing fewer
customers and that a service tax would create more financial pressure.

Save our Students, Schools and State, a coalition of
public education groups, said that a survey of 300 public school districts
showed that 86 percent anticipate layoffs in the coming year if school funding
is reduced by a projected $268 per pupil, an AP report posted at mlive.com
said.

The projection is based on the anticipated deficit in
the School Aid Fund and the fact that schools will have to contribute more to
the school employee pension system next year, the report said. SOS supports a
plan to require school employees to pay more of their own health insurance
costs, AP reported.

Service taxes have been proposed in several states,
according to a report by Stateline.org, published in the Tribune. Pamela Hahn,
secretary of the Michigan Cosmetologists Association, said that a service tax
might result in more salons closing and fewer businesses paying taxes, the
report said.

GROUP PLANS SEVEN DETROIT HIGH SCHOOLS

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Michigan Future Inc. has awarded an
$850,000 grant to Detroit Edison Public School Academy to help it open a new
high school this fall, the first in a planned series of grants, according to
AnnArbor.com.

In all, Michigan Future said it will award $13 million
to help establish seven new high schools over the next three years, with a goal
of sending more Detroit students to college.

The nonprofit organization said that it will work with
existing conventional, private and public charter schools to create the new
schools, according to AnnArbor.com. The schools must maintain an 85 percent
graduation rate, achieve 85 percent college attendance among graduates and
achieve an 85 percent college graduation rate.

The new schools must be open to Detroit students but
do not have to be located within city boundaries, AnnArbor.com reported. The
funding comes from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Skillman Foundation, Kresge
Foundation and McGregor Fund, AnnArbor.com reported.

COURT UPHOLDS GRAND RAPIDS PRIVATIZATION

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Kent County Circuit Court
recently upheld an arbitrator's decision that Grand Rapids Public Schools did
not violate a labor contract when it privatized transportation workers in 2005,
even though their contract with the district had not expired, The Grand Rapids
Press reported.

District leaders said that the court ruled that
arbitrator Paul Glendon acted within the scope of his authority after a review
of relevant information, The Press reported.

The board hired Dean Transportation in 2005 to operate
district buses for five years, concurrently privatizing 225 jobs, according to
The Press.

Since then the district, the company and the Grand
Rapids Education Support Personnel Association, the union which represents the
drivers, have been involved in a series of legal disputes, The Press reported.
GRESPA is affiliated with the Michigan Education Association.

The MEA filed suit against Dean in 2007, alleging that
the company interfered with the union's contract; Dean settled that case for
$600,000, The Press reported. Early in 2009, a U.S.

FENTON SUPPORT STAFF MOVES TO TEAMSTERS

FENTON, Mich. - Members of the Fenton Education
Support Personnel voted to leave the Michigan Education Association and join
Teamsters Local 214, according to the (Fenton) Tri-County Times.

Carla Juarez, chief steward, said that the group needs
to be represented by a union that recognizes the needs of the support staff, the Times reported.

Juarez told the Times that, since 2007, support staff
in Fenton Area Public Schools agreed twice to lower-cost insurance, gave up
paid holidays for one year and agreed to two years of pay freezes.

She described the union as proactively working with
administrators both to save money and protect support staff jobs, the Times
reported.

Negotiations will begin soon on the next employee
contract, the Times reported.

"It is important to make changes, even hard
changes, such as changing insurances and looking at pay freezes, just to name a
couple," Juarez told the Times. "It is time for all groups in the
district to become part of the solution, not part of the problem."

COLLEGE BOUND IN GRADE SCHOOL

DETROIT - Grade school is not too young to be college
bound, according to the leader of a program that says every child has the right
to be prepared for higher education.

The program is the California-based "No Excuses
University Network," which counts Dove Academy in Detroit as its first
Michigan member, founder Damen Lopez told Michigan Education Report.

Michigan Education Report is published by the Mackinac
Center for Public Policy, which also publishes Michigan Education Digest.

"No Excuses" schools are expected to create
a school culture in which going to college is the norm, and in which students
are academically ready to do so. That's the reason for the colorful college
flags posted in the hallways and the "college-bound" pledge that students recite, Stacey Doctor, Dove
assistant principal, told Education Report.

But the program also emphasizes six key academic
strategies, including teacher collaboration, a belief children can learn, and
use of assessment data, the report said.

Affiliating with an outside program or mentoring
organization as a school achievement strategy has gained fresh attention in
Michigan recently, the report said.

CORRECTION

An article in the March 2, 2010, edition of Michigan
Education Digest should have said that Superintendent Ralph Coaster is retiring
from Lake Fenton Community Schools. The name of the school district was
incorrect.
MICHIGAN EDUCATION DIGEST is a service of Michigan Education Report (http://www.educationreport.org), an online newspaper published by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (http://www.mackinac.org), a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute.